Comparative Gov. Exam 1
In which of the following ways does a government built primarily on charismatic legitimacy differ from one based on traditional legitimacy?
Charismatic legitimacy would likely be much shorter-lived.
Which of the following statements about the development and spread of the modern state is accurate?
China's inability to forge a powerful state structure before Europe led to its marginalization in world affairs for over a thousand years.
Which of the following statements about citizenship, national identity, and patriotism is accurate?
Citizenship is likely to be more flexible than ethnic identity.
Which of the following statements about the process of devolution is accurate?
Devolution sometimes, but not often, leads to a change from a unitary to a federalist structure.
Which of the following statements about ethnicity is accurate?
Ethnic solidarity can lessen willingness to share resources with groups that are ethnically different.
The specific concepts of ethnic identity and national identity have their origins in:
Europe toward the end of the eighteenth century.
Which of the following statements about fundamentalism is accurate?
Fundamentalists seek to solve the problems of the modern world.
Which of the following statements about game theory is accurate?
It assumes rational, predictable behavior by individual human beings.
In which of the following ways can multicausality affect comparative politics research?
It complicates the comparative method and makes it more difficult to develop concrete explanations about real-world phenomena.
In which of the following ways does quantitative research differ from qualitative research?
It favors a wider use of cases not restricted by area specialization.
Critics of the behavioral revolution accused it of which of the following?
It had come to emphasize methodology over knowledge.
Which of the following statements about the current institutional approach to comparative politics is accurate?
It shares an emphasis on the importance of institutions with pre-1950s comparative politics research.
In which of the following ways did behavioralism differ from modernization theory?
It was more of a method than a general hypothesis.
A true comparative approach to politics only emerges with the work of:
Machiavelli
In which of the following ways does national conflict differ from ethnic conflict?
National conflict has an independent state as a core goal; ethnic conflict does not.
Which of the following statements about Pakistan's slide toward state failure is accurate?
Pakistan's lack of a central government at the time of formation may have contributed to its continued weakness.
Why might the term patriotic fail to characterize the Palestinian people?
Patriotism refers to pride in one's state, and Palestinians lack a formal state.
Which of the following can be said about the relationships among states, regimes, and governments?
States are more institutionalized than governments.
Which of the following can be said about the concept of a regime?
The differences between regimes are most likely to be unwritten and informal, though they can appear in written constitutions.
Which of the following best describes the current trend in comparative politics research?
There is hopeful talk of moving away from models that describe politics, but much research in comparative politics remains descriptive and focused on a single country.
In which of the following ways were behaviorialism and modernization theory similar?
They both constituted new, more scientific attempts to study politics.
In which of the following ways do both conservatives and liberals differ from radicals?
They do not advocate the removal of existing institutions.
Which of the following is true of the concept of political institutions?
U.S. democracy is an institution in both the formal and informal sense.
Which of the following is true of the work of most comparativists?
When they expand study outside of a single country, they tend to limit their focus to a single geographic region.
Which of the following served as a major modern turning point for the study of comparative politics?
World War I
Which of the following concepts has the most potential to be inclusive or flexible?
citizenship
To a comparativist, which would be of more value: discovery of a correlation or discovery of a causal relationship? Why?
correlation, because it demonstrates more empirically that two variables are interrelated
Which of the following is one of the two most important components of national identity?
self-government
Political attitudes refers to views regarding:
the necessary pace and scope of change in the balance between freedom and equality.
Which of the following concepts is held in common by both communist ideology and liberal and social democratic ideology but is lacking in fascist ideology?
a belief in the potential of individuals
What phenomenon is most responsible for bringing the organization of the modern state into adoption by most of the world?
a centuries-long process of wars and indigenous development of the state
Recent discussions of the future of comparative politics and political science have called for:
a greater connection to real-world concerns and contribution to the ideals of civic life.
Which of the following was among the results of the growing linkage between ethnic and national identities in state development?
a growing capacity of the state to generate tax revenue
Which of the following might be a characteristic of a state with low autonomy?
a limited ability to disobey the public
A state that encompasses one dominant nation that it claims to embody and represent is known as:
a nation-state.
An institution that binds people together through common political aspirations is:
a national identity.
Ascription occurs when:
a particular quality or characteristic is assigned at birth.
Ethnic identity can be defined as:
a set of institutions that bind people together through a common culture.
A greater focus on individual freedom is most likely to require:
a smaller state.
Which of the following is most likely a reason for the emergence of the modern state in Europe rather than in another region?
a widespread collapse of law and civilization and the rise of a form of organized crime
Capacity can be defined as the:
ability of the state to wield power in order to carry out the basic tasks of providing security and reconciling freedom and equality.
Following from the work of Bruce Lawrence, fundamentalism can be defined as:
an ideology that seeks to unite religion with the state.
Citizenship is best defined as:
an individual's or a group's relation to the state.
Political scientists, based on the work of Max Weber, define the state as:
an organization that maintains a monopoly of violence over a territory.
Modernization theory can be defined as the view that:
as societies develop, they will become capitalist democracies
The shift in comparative politics away from political institutions (such as legislatures and constitutions) and toward individual political behavior is known as the:
behavioral revolution
The shorthand term for the combination of regime, state, and government is:
country
Radicals are those in the political spectrum who favor:
dramatic change of the existing order.
An endogenous explanation of early urbanization and state building would suggest that:
early forms of political institutions developed simultaneously with early communities.
Which of the following forms of research or data would more likely be used by a quantitative research study than by a qualitative research study?
economic data
Thomas Hobbes believed that people gave up their rights to the coercive power of the state in order to:
escape anarchy.
Which of the following best characterizes the nature of the conflict of recent years in Afghanistan?
ethnic
A greater focus on collective equality is associated with:
greater government control of private economic assets.
Which of the following concepts or phenomena was first and most directly connected to state development?
growing ethnic identity
The United States is a good example of a state with:
high capacity but low autonomy.
Which of the following was a key characteristic of the first modern states that emerged from the European Dark Ages?
increased domestic stability
The substance of politics is inevitably bound up in the struggle between:
individual freedom and collective equality.
An institution that is recognized and accepted as right and proper by the public is seen as:
legitimate.
Which of the following characteristics is more likely to be seen in a unitary state than in a federalist state?
limited local policymaking
The development of the modern state in Europe was partly encouraged by:
linguistic and ethnic fragmentation.
Conservatives are those in the political spectrum who favor:
little or no change to existing institutions.
A small state government successfully makes major changes to its public education policy out of belief that it is the best thing for the people, even though the public largely opposes the new policy. At the same time, the state proves largely incapable of maintaining law and order or providing food and medical care in a region that is suffering through a drought. In which of the following ways could this state be categorized?
low capacity, high autonomy state
Devolution is a process by which states:
move power from the central state to local levels.
Which of the following concepts is inherently political?
nation
National identity is:
often derived from ethnic identity.
An institution can be defined as any:
organization or activity that is self-perpetuating and valued for its own sake
Recent research suggests that the rise of political organizations came about in large part because:
pre-state societies were extremely violent.
One big rift within the study of comparative politics is:
quantitative versus qualitative research
Modern states are built primarily on what form of legitimacy?
rational-legal
Asymmetric federalism refers to a system in which power is divided unevenly between:
regional bodies.
Reactionaries are those in the political spectrum who favor:
restoring structures and values that they believe once existed.
In case study research, one problem that can emerge is the choosing of only cases that match the expected results of the research question, or what is known as:
selection bias
Power sharing as a way to solve ethnic and national conflict:
sometimes causes concern about "freezing" group divisions.
Sovereignty is defined as the ability of:
states to carry out actions or policies within a territory independent of external actors or internal rivals.
Politics is defined in the text as the
struggle in any group for the power to make decisions for the larger group
Which of the following would be an example of selection bias?
studying causes for the emergence of democracy by looking only at case studies where democracy emerged
The emergence of the modern state is closely tied to which of the following specific developments?
the collapse of the Roman Empire
Which of the following could be considered a major challenge faced by political scientists in their use of the comparative method?
the difficulty in controlling variables
Government can be defined as:
the leadership that runs the state.
What is deductive reasoning?
the means by which we go from a hypothesis to studying evidence
What is inductive reasoning?
the means by which we go from studying a case to generating a hypothesis
Endogeneity refers to:
the problem of distinguishing cause from effect
The text suggests that the difficulty of amending the U.S. Constitution is evidence of the power of:
traditional legitimacy.
Which of the following lists Max Weber's three forms of political legitimacy?
traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal
A major criticism of comparative politics at the turn of the twentieth century was that it:
was descriptive rather than explanatory
Autonomy can be defined as the ability of the state to:
wield power independent of the public or international actors.
